Downpour, gusts bring down trees across SoCal

The nearly non-stop downpour and gusty conditions brought down huge trees, damaging homes and cars across the Southland.

In Whittier, a 75-foot tree came crashing down onto a house and essentially destroyed the entire front portion of the home.

The tree was uprooted from its location just bordering the house around midnight Wednesday. There were people inside the house during the incident, but they were all able to get out without injury.

"We were in the living room watching TV and five minutes later, we decided to go to our bedrooms and go to bed, and two minutes later, we hear a thunderous crash with power lines going down," described Whittier resident Burt Juarez. "We woke up thinking World War III started and a tree had fallen through our home."

There were dozens of problems with trees all over Southern California.

In Newport Beach near Mariners Drive, a huge tree fell across the entire roadway. Crews had to break the tree apart using chainsaws in order to get the tree removed from the street.

Also, there were reports of at least five other fallen trees in the Newport Beach area.

In the Live Oak Canyon area in Claremont, a huge tree snapped several power lines, leaving about 200 families without power Tuesday night. At least four different power poles were taken out.